Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

"That letter," Hermione said. "Did you also suggest to Harry that he ought to write those things?"

"Certainly not." Snape's tone was brisk. "As if I would interest myself in Potter's sentimental drivel."

"It wasn't sentimental. It was horrible."

Snape shrugged once, briefly. "That is as it may be," he said. "What is significant is that he is gone."

"But Draco — "

"He has greater worries than Potter's whereabouts. He has his antidote to take and his health should be of primary concern — "

"I've looked all over the castle for him. I can't even find him. I've been looking for him for hours." Her voice trembled. "What good is a bloody antidote when I can't find him to make sure he takes it?"

"His distress will be temporary," said Snape, still in the same brisk tone.

"That bond he has with Potter will atrophy. Distance will erode it, just as proximity intensifies it. It is the nature of such an affinity. Its occult origins give it strength, but also they provide the key to breaking it."

"I don´t want it broken," Hermione said, so fiercely that her chest hurt.

"And I don´t see why you do, either, or why you care, or why you'd want to meddle, either. I know you hate Harry — "

"This has very little to do with Potter," said Snape icily. "And you might wish to know that when I spoke of side effects to the antidote affecting Draco's Magid powers, I did not tell you all of them. Do keep in mind that as long as that bond between the two is open, as long as their thoughts and feelings and emotions flow unblocked between them, your precious Potter may well be physically vulnerable to both the antidote's side effects, and the corruption of the poison."

Hermione was stunned. It had never occurred to her that the mental bond between the two boys could have a physical effect on either of them. God damn Snape for bringing up Harry's health, the one issue that panicked her more than any other. "You can't be certain," she opined at last, but a great deal of the fervor had gone from her voice.

"No. But are you willing to take the risk? I would imagine that you would agree that Potter will need all his powers intact for what he will soon have to face."

"They can block each other," Hermione said. "They can control it. Draco could be useful to Harry even if they can't read each other's minds — "

"They cannot control it," Snape said. "And you're a fool if you think they can. They have learned to depend upon each other. Unconsciously, each will continue to reach out for the other, unless they are put in a position where neither is willing or able to do that. Imagine I told you that you could no longer use your right hand. You would refrain from using it for as long as you consciously recollected the prohibition. The moment you were distracted, instinct would triumph over instruction. Unless, of course, that hand was broken — impossible to use."

"I hate this," said Hermione intently. "I hate all of it. And you — and Dumbledore — " She swept Snape with a scornful gaze. "I always wondered if you were behind more of this than you've ever admitted to — that Polyjuice potion — "

"Is this," Snape interrupted, in a low, serpentine voice, "what you meant by needing something to do, Miss Granger? I had thought perhaps that you wished to learn how Draco's antidote is made. But perhaps you would prefer to simply fling voluble, if unfounded, accusations at me. Which is less than interesting. You may continue, but do not expect me to pay attention. I have work that requires doing."

Hermione blinked at him. She had registered little beyond his offer regarding Draco's antidote. "You'd teach me how to make it?"

"There might come a time," he said, "when you might need to make it, and I might not be there. I cannot teach Draco to make it himself.

Eventually he will be too ill for that. It would not be a fair expectation."

"No — of course — I mean, I want to know how to make it. I very much want to know."

"Are you sure?" The black eyes under the hooded lids held a latent somberness that was disconcerting. "The side effects are not pleasant. Nor is the taking of the potion itself. It can be painful, and will grow more so the more he takes it. It is constructed to burn the poison out of his blood.

As the poison grown stronger and its concentration in his blood increases, the process will be more painful. The more he has of that antidote, the more it will hurt him."

"I'll make him take it," she said, her voice grim.

"You may have to hold him down," said Snape.

"I'll make him take it."

"Even if you have to fight him on it every time?"

"Even then," Hermione said. She hardly recognized her own voice, the flat determination in it. "He needs it."

"People hate what they need," said Snape coolly.

Hermione raised her chin and looked at him. He was pale, severe-looking, eyes like black hollows in his gauntly tired face. But she knew that tiredness came from all the nights he had spent working to create this antidote, which, imperfect as it was, was all that they had. And she also knew that Snape himself probably expected that she and Draco would go after Harry eventually. That he knew they could not be kept back. And that he was giving her this knowledge, this antidote, so that if they did go, Draco would be as safe as he could be. So he did care about Draco, even if only a little. And they had that in common. She had never had anything in common with Snape before.

"I don't care if he hates me," she said. "I care if he lives."

Snape nodded, apparently satisfied. Then he walked around the table and picked up a vial of blackish fluid. "Extract of nightshade," he began, "must first be added to the powdered belladonna, in that order, for the combination to be effective. The subsequent addition of the asphodel is a delicate procedure…"

Blaise found herself taking something of a leisurely tour of the Parkinson estate before she finally discovered Pansy, who was dancing partly-dressed on top of a long oak table in the solarium.

Blaise stood next to the table and cleared her throat loudly. Pansy, however, appeared not to notice. She had her hands up over her head and was dancing slowly and drunkenly. Her red silk blouse had slipped down over her shoulders and Blaise could see that her girlish over-the-knee stockings had begun to roll down from the tops. She felt what she always felt around Pansy these days — pity, mixed with exasperation and suspicion.

"Pansy," she said, and more loudly, "PANSY!"

She heard a chuckle at her elbow. It was Terence Higgs, having apparently rid himself of his roller skates. "Need a hand up on the table there, Blaise?"

She looked at him narrowly. Attracted to his sandy hair and big dark eyes, she had dated Terence briefly in fifth year before she had come to the weary realization that he was like most Quidditch players: far more interested in Bludgers, Quaffles, and squashing the Gryffindor team than he was in anything else.

"Not sure you'll have any luck talking to Pansy," he added conversationally. "She's had five Dementor's Kisses already. If I were you, I'd get her out of here before she passes out and Marcus or Gregory get their hands on her."

Blaise looked where he was indicating and saw Marcus Flint and Gregory Goyle in the doorway, watching Pansy with knowing smiles. "Ugh," she said. "Terence, help me up."

Terence helped himself to a generous feel of her thigh as he assisted her up onto the table. Blaise let him. A favor was a favor, after all. She got her footing, stepped away, and winked down at him.

"Go distract Greg and Marcus, there's a dear," she said to him, in that tone of voice she had learned, in fact, from Draco — a tone that promised without promising. As she smiled down at Terence, it was Draco she saw suddenly in her mind's eye. The beginning of term, standing in the sunshine outside the Quidditch changing rooms before their first game, waiting for her to come out, and when she did he'd held out his arms to her, his leather wristguards hanging loose and open. "Buckle me," he'd said, and she'd done it, staring into his eyes the entire time. He'd looked back at her, letting her watch him as if this was some gift he was giving her, and she'd stared at him despite her resentment of his arrogance because he was so beautiful: all that pale hair fired with sunlight, gray eyes bright as shards of glass against the lightly tanned skin. He had done no more than smile at her when she was done, drawing his hands back: